


[Remix] A Stiletto Blade (Not the Revolution Haven Was Looking For)

by Aoife, Night-Mare (Aoife)



Category: Honor Harrington Series - David Weber
Genre: Be Careful When You Fight Monsters - Lest You Become One, Dark Andrew LaFollet, Dark Honor Harrington, Era: the High Ridge Government, Gen, Loyal Andrew LaFollet, The Revolution will Not be Televised
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-22
Updated: 2017-02-07
Packaged: 2018-09-19 04:38:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 2,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9419108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aoife/pseuds/Aoife, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aoife/pseuds/Night-Mare
Summary: Remix of one of my favourite short pieces into something longer. Chapter titles are taken from the text of the original.Honor wields political power a little more bloodily than in canon.





	1. It’s not precisely a revolution. Not strictly speaking.

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [A Stiletto Blade (Not the Revolution Haven Was Looking For)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/883342) by [Aoife](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aoife/pseuds/Aoife). 



A revolution would be both more and less messy than the games Honor has chosen - been driven to, in reality - to play, and far less fun. There'd have been more live weapons and fewer pranks (though those pranks could only be called pranks because they were intended to be amusing to those in the know; they were planned with malice aforethought and executed with exactly the same degree of precision as actual assassinations would have been conducted) and significantly more bodies. Most of which would have - probably - been found.

(If pressed by the right person, Honor would lay claim to two of the four bodies that have been discovered in the mansions of Manticore's aristocrats in the last few weeks, but only two, and those by her own hand; her minions might have the inclinations, but were too well trained to be the cause of the others. Without - the yet to be granted - explicit permission, anyway.)


	2. She doesn’t topple Benjamin.

She is godmother to his fourth daughter, the one born during the period when she had first taken up long term residence in her Steading. Little Honor Mayhew is amongst her most precious of people, and it is the quiet actions that she takes to protect her godchild that cements Benjamin’s appreciation of her as the most lethal of the weapons in his armoury. Not kin to the Sword of State, which whilst undeniably lethal, has gained a shell of decadence, of glitter that makes it almost entirely symbolic. Rather, she is kin to another, to one that he has only twice been tempted to bring into the Chamber of Steadholders - and each time she had been there to ease the temptation and wield the more acceptable sword for him.


	3. Or Elizabeth.

Elizabeth was Manticore, almost more so for Honor than anything else, and she loved her kingdom dearly. For that alone she would have been willing to defer to her, but she was also Mike's cousin, and Mike loved her in a way that made Honor respect and want to protect Beth on her behalf. The way the 'cats seemed to adore her too, and it was not uncommon for Samantha to go-a-visiting at the Palace and to seem to genuinely enjoy Elizabeth's company.

For Elizabeth, she has watched her blossom, from the gangly self-conscious cadet that Mike had taken under her wing to one of the most dangerous and political savvy women in the kingdom. She was someone that she trusted the motivations of, who, perhaps, she could call a friend. A friend dangerous enough that she could defend herself, could perhaps even be her champion. She was so lonely, and so angry at her inability to control her government, but Honor was _hope_.


	4. Doesn’t displace them from power.

Her intent - though she's yet to put it in so many words - is not to seize power for herself. If anything too much power already rests on her own hands. Some parts of it are at least theoretical, but they are there and it would be incredibly easy to make use of. It is, rather to return the power to the hands of those she trusts to keep her from needing her monster.

The power that Grayson had handed her, her absolute mastery of those who choose to live and die under rule and her ability, through her position as Benjamin's champion, to extent something like that same rule to even her fellow Steadholders could very easily become intoxicating. That power and its possibilities is more than enough for her - in fact the Protectorship is a leash she rather appreciates at times. 

The power that Manticore has forced on her is both more and less useful; her borderline deification disturbed her - still disturbs her - and the seat in the Lords was as frustrating as being allowed to teach was to her a joy. (That was High Ridge’s first _avoidable_ mistake with handling her. They should have banished her to somewhere far from the home system, not allowed her to retain access - even to instruct - on the Island. The Navy was, increasingly _hers_ as the captaincy of HMS Unconquerable demonstrated, and it was only her respect for Beth that kept her from using what whispers offered.)


	5. One word from either of them and she’d … she’d stop - and she’d tell her armsmen to stop as well.

She had first recognised her monster as a child. When she first did so, it had terrified her; she knew that she’d loose control of it one day. In the aftermath of her bonding with Nimitz, when she duplicated Stephanie’s slaying of the Hexapuma that threatened both of them, she realised that even a monster could be just if it chose to serve. Long, long conversations with her father and her uncle, about the Cherwell Convention, about secret wars and not so secret wars and why the universe needed wolves led to this. She leashed her monster, and put the leash in Nimitz’s hands; later, when she swore her oaths to them, she had also placed leashes in the hands of both her Queen and her Protector. 

(Both had made use of her leash in the past. She’d come to heel then, despite the desire to sate her monster on the flesh of her enemies. Despite the desire to ensure that they would never again be a threat to that which she considered hers. She’d learnt well from her mother’s twin and from the ‘cats of the Copper Walls, and honed her skills with the trainers on the Island.)


	6. In the meantime, her armsmen slide through the security measures meant to keep them out of the other Steadings and out of the homes of Manticorian nobles like they aren’t there (the advantages to a guard made up entirely of refugees from other steadings).

The core of her armsmen, at least the original core that Benjamin wrapped around her more than a decade ago, were the ones that picked each and every new member of her personal guard; and the nature of her steading meant that each and everyone had belonged to another Steadholder, once upon a time. A surprising number of them came from the more conservative Steadings, bringing out their sisters and mothers and on one memorable occasion a dozen female cousins to safety, but they still had relatives in those Steadings. Said relatives formed an intricate network that allowed her a level of knowledge of the internal workings of their Steadings that would almost certainly surprise and horrify the other Steadholders. 

Prior to the most recent events on both her worlds, she’d been merely content to simply gather information on each of her political opponents, but now the gloves are off. Her armsmen are having fun, showing off for her; not in obvious public ways, but she has a surprisingly large collection of old fashioned photographs of her fellow Steadholders asleep. And then they extend their game to Manticore.


	7. They still haven’t said anything officially when Baron High Ridge manages to seize power in the Star Kingdom [...], but two unsheathed swords are delivered to the Bay House within four days of each other.

The two swords lie in contrast to each other, for all they arrive as close to simultaneously at the Bay House as is possible when intersystem coordination was concerned. They are beautiful and deadly, each with their own lethal history, and masterpieces of their type. 

The fact that they are unsheathed, and carried in by messengers who refuse to put them down, until Honor takes them from their hands. The messengers bear no other messages; their livery pointedly neutral in colour and unbadged, though she knows exactly who they’d come from, and anyone else with the sense God gave a Terran rabbit would also be well aware of who the swords are a gift from. Especially when her lips curve into a smile that bears more similarities to a hunting 'cat's snarl than it does to anything that belongs on a human face.


	8. One is a beautiful version of a Royal Manticorian Navy dress sword; only razor sharp.

The swords that the officers of the Royal Manticoran Navy wear when in their dress uniforms are an anachronism. They function only as props, a relic of the fact that the original “aristocrats” of the kingdom had decided to embrace the pomp and ceremony of being a monarchy. Few officers carry swords that they know how to use; those that do may, with permission, carry a live blade. Even fewer do.

Whilst Honor’s preferred anachronism was her 10mm pistol, she’d taken up the sword whilst on Grayson, given it’s role in her new society. As a consequence, she had carried a live blade since on the occasions when regulations required, but on Benjamin's instructions, it was not the standard weapon, but rather the sword she had taken from Burdette on the floor of the Chamber of Steadholders. It was intended as an explicit warning; most Graysons took it that way.

This sword, on the other hand, is what you’d get if you took the standard mess sword and refined it, and refined it and refined it - much as a Grayson sword smith would do - it is the thing and the whole of the thing, the pattern from which the others are cast.


	9. Mike hisses when she sees it, several weeks later.

It turns out that the sword has even more of a history than she had been aware of. Mike had been down to visit her, a side trip from a briefing at Admiralty House. As she was trusted, Honor had receive her in the private study where the two blades sat side by side in the specialists supports that Andrew had produced from somewhere for her. Still unsheathed.

Mike’s eyes had widened almost comically when she’d laid eyes on the one that Honor hadn’t been able to place entirely. Manticoran law specified decapitation for High Treason on the part of a member of the aristocracy. The sword had neither been used nor even seen by any one outside the immediate Royal family since it’s last use more than two centuries prior. 

Nimitz’s smile at this information reminds Mike of nothing so much as that of the Cheshire Cat’s from the old Earth tale about Alice in Wonderland.


	10. The other is a weapon that Honor recognises [...] another one from the Mayhew armoury, with a darker history.

Like the Harrington Sword, this one was never made for the hand that now wielded. It fit Honor’s hand better than she wanted to admit, given that she knew it's story. The polite fiction was that Benjamin the Great had melted this Sword down; that it’s metal had been used to make the Sword of State, along with that of several other taken blades. The truth was that it had tasted the blood of too many of the planet’s high-ranking families for Benjamin IV to want to wield it, even reforged, even with his own hands. So it had been wrapped and tucked away against need; Benjamin IV may have not trusted it, but he was a pragmatist through and through, and he could see the day when one of his descendants would need it.


	11. Earls of North Hollow don’t last very long these days.

There’s something that goes with the title “Earl of North Hollow” that turns even relatively benign misogynists into something more dangerous. If it wasn’t for how much fun Andrew was having killing them the first time they stepped out of line towards his Lady, she’d be asking questions about which member of the former Earls’ support staff was the actual threat. Surely after they’ve run through three or four, the survivors should start to learn the lesson?

Whether it was three or four depends on whether one counted Pavel. She didn’t, but Andrew insisted that she should. Of course, perhaps the fact that all the deaths had been ruled suicides, probably didn’t help reinforce that lesson. It was amazing what people would overlook if you set the scene.


	12. Nor do Steadholders Burdette (though the current one might; he’s all of four months old right now, and his surviving mother is remarkable sane).

She’d been so hopeful that after she’d slain his father that the new Steadholder Burdette might have learnt his lesson; it had certainly seemed like he had at first. Then Howard had bought her the evidence that the new Burdette had taken up his father’s ways. The smile on his face when Honor gives him permission reminds her of who - and what -he’d been before he’d taken up her Regency.

The reminder doesn’t bother her. Nor do the messy deaths, in quick succession of the former Lord Burdette’s sons, and one of their wives. After all, he’d stopped short of where she’d have done; the youngest of the men had had a son, and he was going to be given a chance. It helped that his mother was a distant Clinkscales connection, she suspected. While she didn't know what had possessed her to marry the Burdette boy, but she was willing to listen to her patriarch and had petitioned Benjamin to make her her son's regent.


End file.
